Hereinafter, a textual message that is electronically posted from or on behalf of a user, in a messaging platform, for distribution to one or more other users of the messaging platform is interchangeably referred to as simply a “message” unless expressly disambiguated where used. A message includes textual data and can optionally include additional data in other forms, such as image data, audio content, video content, multimedia content, and the like.
A messaging platform is a system to facilitate the communication of a message from one user of the platform to one or more other users of the platform. A messaging channel is interchangeably referred to as a “channel” herein. A channel is an organization of messages in the messaging platform according to one or more of message characteristics. Some non-limiting examples of message characteristics include a topic related to a message, a target user or user-group towards whom the message is directed, a reason for the message or a relationship of the message with a subject-matter (i.e., a context), a sentiment expressed in the message, a linguistic tone or styling of the message, and many others.
Some non-limiting examples of message characteristics usable to create and/or manage a channel include a topic, a target user or user-group, and a geographical region. For example, a channel may be for discussing a particular product (an example of a topic) and therefore may include messages related to that topic. Another example channel may be for having conversations with a selected group of users—the conversation being related to an arbitrary set of topics, or some selected topic or topics—and therefore include messages to and from users in that group. Another example channel may be for geography-specific topics and therefore include messages pertaining to those topics. Another example channel may be for users from a geographical region and therefore include messages to and from those users.